Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The Bovespa index advanced for a
third day as retailer Lojas Americanas SA led gains by companies
that sell on credit amid speculation that Brazilian policy
makers will delay raising record low interest rates.

Airline Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA rose after saying
its frequent-flier unit Smiles filed a request with securities
regulators to sell shares in an initial public offering.
Paranapanema SA, Brazil’s biggest copper smelter, surged after
reporting its first profit in five quarters.

The Bovespa rose 0.3 percent to 57,424.29 at the close of
trading in Sao Paulo, paring this month’s decline to 3.9
percent. The gauge has dropped 5.8 percent in 2013, the worst
start to a year since 2003, amid concern that accelerating
inflation may curb Brazil’s economic recovery and that the
government’s interventionist policies will hurt profits in
industries including utilities and energy.

“Economic data seem to support a view that the central
bank won’t come up with a big rate increase and instead will opt
for a gradual adjustment, which wouldn’t be so bad for
equities,” Otavio Vieira, who helps manage 270 million reais as
a partner at hedge fund Fides Asset Management, said by phone
from Rio de Janeiro. “The prospects of a huge rate increase
scared away some investors in the past few weeks, and maybe this
will change in the coming months.”

Gol Rises

Swap rates on most contracts fell, indicating reduced bets
on an interest-rate increase, after a report showed a decline in
Brazil’s services confidence index. The gauge fell 2.7 percent
in February from a month earlier to 122.1, the Getulio Vargas
Foundation said. The real depreciated 0.3 percent to 1.9785 per
U.S. dollar.

Lojas Americanas’s voting shares advanced 7.8 percent to
17.20 reais in the best performance on the MSCI Brazil/Consumer
Discretionary Index, which rose to a two week high.

Gol climbed 3.6 percent to 12.57 reais.

Vale SA, the world’s biggest iron-ore producer, gained 3.1
percent to 36.55 reais after earlier falling as much as 2
percent. Chief Executive Officer Murilo Ferreira said today that
the company is poised to benefit from a price recovery and a
balance-sheet cleanup that spurred a record quarterly loss.

Vale yesterday posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $2.65
billion after writing down the value of some nickel, coal and
steel assets, compared with a year-earlier profit of $4.67
billion.

“We have great confidence that these negative numbers that
you see today will become strongly positive,” Ferreira told
analysts on a conference call.

Paranapanema Surges

Paranapanema surged 8.7 percent to 5.25 reais, the best
performer on the BM&FBovespa Small Cap index, which added 0.7
percent. The company said in a regulatory filing today that net
income was 40.8 million reais in the fourth quarter, which
compares with a net loss of 61.2 million reais one year earlier.

Eighteen of 28 companies on the Bovespa index that have
already reported fourth-quarter earnings trailed analysts’
estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Oil producers Petroleo Brasileiro SA and OGX Petroleo & Gas
Participacoes SA were the main decliners on the Bovespa, falling
at least 1.2 percent as crude fell to the lowest level this
year.

Brazil’s benchmark equity gauge trades at 11.7 times
analysts’ earnings estimates for the next four quarters,
compared with 10.5 for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index of 21
developing nations’ equities, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Trading volume for stocks in Sao Paulo was 8.8 billion
reais today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That
compares with a daily average of 7.53 billion reais this year
through Feb. 26, according to data compiled by the exchange.